Just curious. With the $10 mil from the Legislature, it seems as though we might be underway for the remodel. I understand the concept behind rotating the court 90 degrees - but hope that they then run seats all the way down to the floor. Also, I am curious about the club seats and boxes and where they put them.
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Has anyone seen the renderings for the Arena-Aud renovation?
- Thread starter LawPoke
- Start date
laxwyo
Well-known member
I'd be for renaming the AA to a sponsored name "Coors Court at the AA" type of deal if they fronted some good coin, put in a center hung scoreboard and all the problems we've been told there is doing it that way. Maybe we could put in a screen like Jerry's world, about the size of the court! and of course.....sell some damn beer.
you'd have thought they would have renderings for what they want done before they get a chunk of change to do it, wouldn't they?
you'd have thought they would have renderings for what they want done before they get a chunk of change to do it, wouldn't they?
kansasCowboy
Well-known member
All the talk of going from 15,000 to 10,000 is quite annoying to me. Ever since we've had Burman our capacities have gone DOWN. War Memorial doesn't even hold 30,000 anymore. That is Pathetic! If we do anymore renovating on it, you might as well call us Utah State. With their amazing stadium of 25,000.
wyocowboy2014
Well-known member
I would like to see the student section moved to either end of the court or behind the visitor bench. Also as far as suites go I've heard it would be more of a club room. It would be like the main area of the wildcatter. It would basically replace the Rochelle room from what I've heard.
wyocowboy2014
Well-known member
why does it matter if we can't even fill what we currently have.kansasCowboy said:
laxwyo
Well-known member
wyocowboy2014 said:
kind of what i was thinking. Only time we have sellouts is when a big schools come to town and buy half our season tickets.
Would they cut it to 10,000? I hear maybe a few thousand. so it would still be 12 or 13k.
I don't have a problem with lower capacities. I hope the War goes to real seats instead of high school bleachers.
McPeachy
Well-known member
wyocowboy2014 said:
Small time thinking like this is what put UW in it's current position...scrambling to get to the whopping $30 million athletic budget level...
"No coach will ever make a million dollars a year at Wyoming" - Tom Burman.
UW has everything going for it, and the sky is the limit, but with the small time thinking running athletics, we are going to stay small time...in athletics. UW has been passive for too long...good enough is not good enough. The current rumblings at CSewe should be a wake up call for UW.
I could go on and on...
laxwyo said:
I also have a problem with lopping 33% off of the best possible crowd that we can draw for the biggest games. When we have a program like we had under Schroyer, the building's capacity was not the limiting factor for our per-game revenue or ticket sales (you choose the metric). If the real goal is simply applying the label "sellout" or "near-sellout" to our attendance, we have the old MPG that could be retrofitted to hold the kind of crowds we were getting the last couple years. We could have even hosted games in Storey Gym over in Cheyenne because I think it holds around 4,000 people.
To me, the fact that we have the capacity that we do basically eliminates the ceiling on potential attendance. Over the whole arc of post-Brandenberg basketball at U.W. we have been able to periodically sell more than 10,000 tickets and occasionally we have even sold the place out. It does not cause a problem with the quality of the atmosphere in that venue when there are merely 8K-10K people in attendance other than the realization that the program and experience could be better.
I have a question, what would be the average in-conference game attendance be for a team that was already in the Top 20 before the conference season began if that team continued to rise in the polls throughout the conference season? Would be be thinking that 10,000 seats were more than enough to meet ticket demand then?
To me, selling out a 10K-12K seat arena from time to time does not somehow make us a better program than not selling out our current 15K seat arena for games when we do sell the same number of tickets.
On a political note, I am appalled that the legislature decided to redirect highway money to the A-A downsizing project. Maybe better roads and more jobs based on those roads would have done more to help both the basketball program and the budget for the university than cutting the per game ticket sales potential by 1/3?
McPeachy
Well-known member
laxwyo said:
Just a theory I have, and believe in.
And this started with Barta & Staff...they were all for lowering seating capacities to drive up demand, which in turn, drives up revenue from advertisers & ticket prices (and affords UW the opportunity to stick new season ticket holders with a CJC seating premium...thanks Tom Burman & Josh Rebholz).
Act small, work small, think small, and make statements that you are small...YOU ARE SMALL.
As the tool at Fort Fart said..."Athletics is the front porch of the University". And he is on the money. Holy shit, where would UNLV be (for example) if they didn't think big (hoops) in the 80's by building the T&M and extending Tark...probably still be a 10,000 student commuter school in the southern part of Nevada with a funny name.
How many folks realize that the Pokes have played before over 10,000 in the A-A 73 times since it was built? (Page 20 at http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools...df/2011-12/misc_non_event/history-records.pdf)
Also, there have been 11 seasons with an average attendance of over 8,000 including 3 seasons of over 10,000. Because, as either students or graduates of the University, most of us know that average is a measure of central tendency which means that there were several games in each of those seasons when the attendance was even higher than the average.
Throughout the mostly-mediocre seasons between our high points we still seemed to draw 6K-8K+ fans per game except during the Schroyer debacle. His time on campus was an outlier and does not serve as a valid basis upon which to plan for the proper size of our basketball facility.
At the extreme end, the 1987-88 season had an average home attendance of 13,165. (Page 24 at http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools.../misc_non_event/this-is-cowboy-basketball.pdf)
At 10,000 seats, we would have to subtract every ticket sold in excess of 10,000 for any game exceeding that 10K threshold and figure out what our average per game would have been for the past seasons without those sales to properly determine whether 10K capacity is a reasonable capacity. It is not like the fans who only showed up for the highest-profile games that drew over 10K people would simply buy tickets to some non-conference game in order to keep the total tickets sold in a season equal to what they were in a 15,000+ seat venue.
I suppose we could downsize the A-A to something similar to the facility that SDSU is going to take into its new Big West gym league. I still think that one of the hallmarks of the Mountain West was that virtually every facility outside of Colorado was at least as large as the largest facilities at the premier programs in the Big Six conferences. When our facilities in the MWC fill up, even the highest profile programs would be envious of our crowd sizes. That, in my opinion, is part of why the MWC is different than C-USA or the Missouri Valley Conference.
Also, there have been 11 seasons with an average attendance of over 8,000 including 3 seasons of over 10,000. Because, as either students or graduates of the University, most of us know that average is a measure of central tendency which means that there were several games in each of those seasons when the attendance was even higher than the average.
Throughout the mostly-mediocre seasons between our high points we still seemed to draw 6K-8K+ fans per game except during the Schroyer debacle. His time on campus was an outlier and does not serve as a valid basis upon which to plan for the proper size of our basketball facility.
At the extreme end, the 1987-88 season had an average home attendance of 13,165. (Page 24 at http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools.../misc_non_event/this-is-cowboy-basketball.pdf)
At 10,000 seats, we would have to subtract every ticket sold in excess of 10,000 for any game exceeding that 10K threshold and figure out what our average per game would have been for the past seasons without those sales to properly determine whether 10K capacity is a reasonable capacity. It is not like the fans who only showed up for the highest-profile games that drew over 10K people would simply buy tickets to some non-conference game in order to keep the total tickets sold in a season equal to what they were in a 15,000+ seat venue.
I suppose we could downsize the A-A to something similar to the facility that SDSU is going to take into its new Big West gym league. I still think that one of the hallmarks of the Mountain West was that virtually every facility outside of Colorado was at least as large as the largest facilities at the premier programs in the Big Six conferences. When our facilities in the MWC fill up, even the highest profile programs would be envious of our crowd sizes. That, in my opinion, is part of why the MWC is different than C-USA or the Missouri Valley Conference.
Cowduck
Well-known member
I don't necessarily agree that reducing the capacity is "thinking small." I think the trend overall in indoor arenas is smaller and more intimate, both because attendance trends for these events nationwide is going down and because there is more emphasis on creating a better experience for the fan and increasing demand for the tickets. The brand new arena at the University of Oregon only seats a bit over 12,000. (I'll bracket my feelings about the blasphemy of abandoning McArthur Court, which was so fucking badass). You would think that if any school was going to go big or go home on a new basketball arena it would be Oregon, with bottomless pockets and designs on establishing itself as a "big time" athletic program. But they kept it relatively small, with an emphasis on recreating an intimate atmosphere. (Never mind they already had the best, most intimate arena with the most character west of the Mississippi save for maybe Phog Allen, but whatever.)
The AA is a relic of a different time in arena construction philosophy - big, utilitarian, and reflective of a culture when people had less shit to do so you could expect to routinely draw crowds big enough to justify the size. I ranted a while ago about the piss poor attendance for a critical game in a successful season and I stand behind those statements, but at the same time we have to acknowledge that there is all kinds of crap competing for people's attention that didn't exist in the early 80's. Now, I love that place and it is home to my favorite memories attending sporting events, and when you pack them in there is no place like it. But if a meteor leveled the AA tomorrow and we had to hire architects to start over from scratch building a basketball arena, I guarantee that their recommendation would probably be to build something with a max capacity of maybe 10-11k at the most, and our marketing department would hire consultants to discuss ways to enhance the fan experience at games, and I would heartily agree with that.
In 2012, "big time" college athletics does not necessarily correlate with "big arenas." Especially in basketball, when you have a higher volume of games (which reduces scarcity of your product) and a fair amount of them are on weeknights. I think with the way our culture is changing, we have to start being a little progressive in our thinking when it comes to ways to maximizing the attractiveness of the in-game experience.
Consider Gonzaga's arena built in 2004 - they were riding the wave of national popularity based on consistent success, they are located in a metropolitan area with three times the population of Laramie and Cheyenne combined, and you would have to say that they are a "big time" basketball program despite the fact that they play in the WCC. And the new Kennel seats 6,000 (old one sat 4,000, for reference). They sell out every game and would probably do so if that arena were double the size. Food for thought.
There was a Bill Simmons podcast a few months ago when he had the CEO of TicketBastard as his guest, and they discussed this stuff extensively. I recommend a listen.
The AA is a relic of a different time in arena construction philosophy - big, utilitarian, and reflective of a culture when people had less shit to do so you could expect to routinely draw crowds big enough to justify the size. I ranted a while ago about the piss poor attendance for a critical game in a successful season and I stand behind those statements, but at the same time we have to acknowledge that there is all kinds of crap competing for people's attention that didn't exist in the early 80's. Now, I love that place and it is home to my favorite memories attending sporting events, and when you pack them in there is no place like it. But if a meteor leveled the AA tomorrow and we had to hire architects to start over from scratch building a basketball arena, I guarantee that their recommendation would probably be to build something with a max capacity of maybe 10-11k at the most, and our marketing department would hire consultants to discuss ways to enhance the fan experience at games, and I would heartily agree with that.
In 2012, "big time" college athletics does not necessarily correlate with "big arenas." Especially in basketball, when you have a higher volume of games (which reduces scarcity of your product) and a fair amount of them are on weeknights. I think with the way our culture is changing, we have to start being a little progressive in our thinking when it comes to ways to maximizing the attractiveness of the in-game experience.
Consider Gonzaga's arena built in 2004 - they were riding the wave of national popularity based on consistent success, they are located in a metropolitan area with three times the population of Laramie and Cheyenne combined, and you would have to say that they are a "big time" basketball program despite the fact that they play in the WCC. And the new Kennel seats 6,000 (old one sat 4,000, for reference). They sell out every game and would probably do so if that arena were double the size. Food for thought.
There was a Bill Simmons podcast a few months ago when he had the CEO of TicketBastard as his guest, and they discussed this stuff extensively. I recommend a listen.
laxwyo
Well-known member
Cowduck is on the money. It's not like they are carving up 5K worth of seats just so those seats are gone. I think 12K-13K is just fine with the opportunity to have some type of club seating and upgraded fan experience. I still like the court size HD screen hanging over the arena. Want to think Big time. Jerry Jones knows what it's about.
Does anybody know how many times the AA has been sold out? I heard season averages which take into account AF coming to town and killing your numbers with higher number games. only 3 seasons above 10K.
I might get branded on this note, but I think (now that UW has a good product on the floor) that having a lower capacity arena might actually make an AA game a hotter ticket. It's nice to know that you can essentially get a ticket to any game you want, but people might buy more season tickets and tickets to other games if seats were a hotter commodity. I might be alone in this thought. Take into account the availability of some club seating and other improvements. A lower capacity is not going to kill us. 10K is too low. 12-13k seems reasonable with the other additions.
Does anybody know how many times the AA has been sold out? I heard season averages which take into account AF coming to town and killing your numbers with higher number games. only 3 seasons above 10K.
I might get branded on this note, but I think (now that UW has a good product on the floor) that having a lower capacity arena might actually make an AA game a hotter ticket. It's nice to know that you can essentially get a ticket to any game you want, but people might buy more season tickets and tickets to other games if seats were a hotter commodity. I might be alone in this thought. Take into account the availability of some club seating and other improvements. A lower capacity is not going to kill us. 10K is too low. 12-13k seems reasonable with the other additions.
kansasCowboy
Well-known member
I might get branded on this note, but I think (now that UW has a good product on the floor) that having a lower capacity arena might actually make an AA game a hotter ticket. It's nice to know that you can essentially get a ticket to any game you want, but people might buy more season tickets and tickets to other games if seats were a hotter commodity.
Oh, you got it right. They drop attendance, raise ticket prices and try to get more season ticket holders.
It will not happen the way they want it to. For one, if they do this you can say goodbye to about 3-4,000 fans who make it to a few games a year that travel from out of state to go. Me for one, will stop going if I need to get season tickets. It's a waste of my money when I can only make one or two games a year. Not to mention about 4 to 5,000 more fans from in state who do not want to buy season tickets for the same reason.
Raise ticket prices and bet that I and many, many others will just stay home. And if that happens then look for the same average attendance of 6-8,000.
Oh, you got it right. They drop attendance, raise ticket prices and try to get more season ticket holders.
It will not happen the way they want it to. For one, if they do this you can say goodbye to about 3-4,000 fans who make it to a few games a year that travel from out of state to go. Me for one, will stop going if I need to get season tickets. It's a waste of my money when I can only make one or two games a year. Not to mention about 4 to 5,000 more fans from in state who do not want to buy season tickets for the same reason.
Raise ticket prices and bet that I and many, many others will just stay home. And if that happens then look for the same average attendance of 6-8,000.
Cuttslam
Well-known member
Cowduck is 99.9% right on the money. It all has to be about the game day experience and the atmosphere inside the building. AA seating of 15000 is insane and unsustainable even in the great years.I wouldn't go over 10000 in seating capacity. I watched a few games the last couple of weeks that included Utah st (10200) Stanford(7400) Duke(9300) Gonzaga(6000) Murray st(8600) CSU(8745) Arizona st(10700) Which provided a fantastic game day experience on TV and I'm sure in person . I hope they end up gutting that place(AA) it is not a good fit for Wyoming athletics. I would also move the students to the TV side right in the middle and move the band to the end of one of the goals. I would also sell the naming rights to the new arena. I always liked Hell's Half Acre Arena at 7220.
JimmyDimes
Well-known member
I was fortunate to be a student in the late 80's and early 90's and nothing, and I mean nothing compared to the atmosphere we had in the AA. That being said, fix it up nice and make it an even better experience than it is now. Then, when the program gets back on track and the fans come out again, we'll have the best of both worlds.
Peace!!
Peace!!
Cowduck
Well-known member
kansasCowboy said:
I seriously doubt we will ever get to the point, even with significantly reducing capacity of the arena, that it will be cost prohibitive for the "travel to a few games a year" folks to continue to do so without having to be season ticket holders. You could double ticket prices tomorrow (which will never happen, btw) and tickets still wouldn't be the most expensive part of a trip to Laramie to catch a Friday/Saturday game. You might get pissy about the ticket cost increase and decide to stay home on the principle of the matter, but that would just be cutting off your Poke fan nose to spite your face.
And frankly, that segment of people is not who you base your overall strategy for sustained maximization of revenue on because by definition they are only coming to a few games a year. We're talking about 16-18 home basketball games, about half of which are on weeknights. You have to focus on the Laramie/Cheyenne corridor as the bulk of your revenue stream, because those are the people of whom it is reasonable to expect to come to more than a few games a year.
